


I Won't Know How to Quit You

by MagpieWords



Series: AUgust 2020 - Magpiewords [8]
Category: Harley Quinn (Cartoon 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Brokeback Mountain Fusion, Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Fluff, Getting Together, Nature, Sort Of, more like 'annoying coworker' to lovers that is very one sided
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:28:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25845082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagpieWords/pseuds/MagpieWords
Summary: What if Brokeback Mountain was lesbians and nobody died?
Relationships: Pamela Isley/Harleen Quinzel
Series: AUgust 2020 - Magpiewords [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1860265
Comments: 9
Kudos: 36
Collections: AUgust 2020





	I Won't Know How to Quit You

**Author's Note:**

> hey, ive been busy the last few days but i wanted to get back on track for AUgust_2020. So I'm posting slightly out of order, so I can get today's prompt done on time.
> 
> anyway, i just really love poison ivy and harley quinn being dorky and happy together.
> 
> Also, there's a brief moment of suicidal ideation, basically Harley figuring she's better off dead. Ivy shuts that down pretty quickly, but i wanted to give a quick warning in case anyone was concerned. I'm not sure it merits a tag though? But please let me know if I should add that.

The new girl wasn’t going to last a day out here, let alone the whole season. Ivy didn’t know how this city slicker got hired for ranching, but here she was. It was even more of a mystery why someone like her would apply for this job at all. Ivy could already see a sunburn starting on her incredibly pale cheeks - she didn’t even have a hat.

“Wear this.” Lucky for Harley, Ivy had an extra. She forced the hat on her with a little more force than necessary, flattening Harley’s pigtails. Not that Harley seemed to mind.

She pushed the brim of the hat up just enough to smile up at Ivy, joy nearly blinding her. “Thanks, Red!”

“Whatever.” They didn’t have time for nicknames or smiles or whatever this was. The sheep were getting restless anyway. “Let's get a move on.”

Harley adjusted her backpack and grinned again. “I don't care if you're movin' slow or fast, as long as it's my direction.”

“No, we actually should get moving fast." What did that even mean? They were moving in the same direction, west across the mountains. At least Harley was already on her horse without too much trouble. 

The first few miles were surprisingly silent, despite how much Harley had talked in the first few minutes after the boss introduced them as a team for the season. Half worried the horse had bucked the city slicker off, Ivy turned back to look at her. No bucking, the patchy stallion looked calmer than Ivy had seen a horse take to a new rider.

Harley wasn’t looking at her. Unfortunately, she wasn’t much looking at the trail either, but that hardly mattered this far from civilization. She was staring at the mountains, cresting in the distance, awestruck. It was a different kind of joy than how she had looked at Ivy, but it was just as powerful. 

“Never seen mountains before?” Why was she starting a conversation? Ivy didn’t start conversations, she ended them. It wasn’t even some biting jab at Harley’s lack of experience, her voice sounded sincerely curious to her own ears. What was happening here?

“No, never.” Harley sounded breathless, and that sounded almost more beautiful than silence itself. She laughed at herself and Ivy realized she could find a new favorite song in that joyful noise. “I betcha see stuff like this all the time, huh?”

And then that joy, that intense focus, was turned from the mountains to Ivy. How did they not crumble under its force, when she felt her knees go weak and she wasn’t even standing?

“Yeah, but it never gets old.” She found herself smiling back and, for once, she didn’t hate the feeling.

The chatter picked up after that, returning to the brink of annoying, but not quite as frustrating as it had been the first time. It only took one inane question of “what’s that flower” before Ivy found herself engaging in the conversation. She didn’t bother fighting it, she had to point out that it wasn’t actually a flower, that was a specialized fern leaf. Harley seemed enamored with Ivy’s knowledge of the local flora, and the question stopped being annoying after the first one.

No one ever wanted to listen to her like this. And, oddly enough, Ivy found herself wanting to listen to what Harley had to say in return.

Setting up camp for the evening brought back Ivy’s irritation, watching her partner get herself tied up in rope and canvas. “Have you ever even pitched a tent before?”

“Ha, that’s what he said,” Harley laughed at her own stupid joke before her ankle snagged on the knots she’d made and she fell on her face. “Uh, no, I have not.”

“You’re hopeless.” Ivy resolved not to help her. She wasn’t getting paid enough to babysit sheep and her coworker.

“Yeah, I guess I am.” Harley’s easy, almost breathless agreement didn’t make a lick of sense, but Ivy was already curled up in her sleeping bag. She wasn’t paid enough to care about how some city girl’s mind worked.

She didn’t bother keeping track of how many days passed like that. It was one of the perks of the job, days blending together, time becoming less about the hours and more about when the clouds told her there would be a storm rolling in. Ivy felt at peace out here, listening to the silence and the sheep and the new delight of Harley’s laughter. She seemed to find everything hilarious, even her own suffering. Each scrape or bite or tangled lasso delighted her, simply because of their novelty.

Ivy didn’t exactly share the same sentiment, quickly running out of bandages from her pack. “Are you sure you’re going to survive this season?”

Harley just shrugged. “Either I do or I don’t.”

“Uh, no.” That was not an option. “I’m not about to let you die on my watch.”

Harley laughed, but it wasn’t the beautiful sound Ivy had been spoiled by these last few days. It was hollow, storm clouds circling around it. “Not like I got a lot to go back to. Might as well stay out here with the…” Her slender fingers dipped into a rich bed of moss and she looked up at Ivy with wide eyes that would have stolen anyone’s breath away.

“ _Philonotis yezoana_ ,” she provided, more than willingly. “Apple moss. A nice enough deathbed, but I’m afraid I still can’t let that happen.”

“Aw, Red, you got a crush on me or somethin’?” Harley’s grin wasn’t cruel, wasn’t the hurt that usually accompanied those words. There was curiosity in her wide eyes.

Ivy tightened the gauze a little harsher than necessary, refusing to let herself break this overwhelming eye contact. “And if I did?”

“I’d say maybe I have something to look forward to after this trip.”

Harley didn’t need to struggle with pitching her own tent again.


End file.
